Underrated CUUSOO: March 2015

Welcome to another edition of Underrated CUUSOO for LEGO Ideas, exclusively on SilentMode.tv. Once again we take a quick look at the Discovery tab on the LEGO Ideas site to see what’s up… or what should be up, according to SilentMode.tv.
Apart from the recent news that the Exo Suit is nearing the end of its run, as well as old CUUSOO favourites Labyrinth Marble Maze by JKBrickWorks and Piano by Hidaka finally making the review stage, there’s nothing we’ve been particularly excited about in the world of LEGO crowdsourcing. However, we were able to find a few hidden gems to promote this month…

Reminiscent of the famous Collectible Minifigure vignettes by cecilie, this would actually be a good candidate for an official LEGO set, although interest in Series 13 would surely be non-existent by the time it would be released. In any case, each of the vignettes pictured here are on 6×6 plates, and if you don’t already have a display solution for your Collectible Minifigures you’d have an impressive display with these.

So far this project has 255 supporters in just a few days, so it’s gotten a healthy initial push.

More IP love for those who love IP. This project, which immediately looks like it has Minecr..aft influence, is based on a popular app.

Personally I think this project lends itself better to Nanoblocks, particularly due to the perceived size of the creatures but also because of the colours used. There’s no reason it can’t be in LEGO, however, and they’d probably be right at home with all those Creator creatures.

Right now 53 people think it would make a good LEGO set; you can join them if you like.

Here’s another offering for fans of trains, and in particular classic American trains. The project description even goes into what the Golden Spike Ceremony is, for those who have no clue, which goes a long way in showing that this is a very passionate project.

Even though recent years have seen a small handful of trains go on the shelves, I have noticed quite a bit of interest in classic trains, whether on Flickr or elsewhere, and it may be about time to release one (given how legendary the Emerald Night set has become).

This project also makes the list because Jack valued my opinion enough to get in contact, which I’d encourage everybody to do! In any case, it seems to be doing very well with 204 supporters.

A simple but elegant idea for a project, which doesn’t need hundreds of thousands of parts. I can easily see this one on the shelves – and I’d buy it too. Unfortunately I can also see LEGO stealing this idea for themselves…

What does it for me is the colour scheme: if you’re familiar with my MOCs you’ll notice I use a lot of black and white elements, but it particularly works with this model. The white life vest is a great touch, which I hope will make it into the final product if it goes through.

Alas, before I pointed out the white life vest, the project only had 34 supporters. I guess they were wondering if the boat would actually float…

Eagle-eyed observers will note kakinken’s cheeky and deliberate use of a cloth to mimic a White baseplate. With that aside, here we have a retro-looking building, home to an ice cream parlour. It almost reminds me of my childhood, where a café selling ice cream stood between the nursery and my house.

There are a number of familiar techniques used in the model, and if the project makes the review it will be interesting to see which features end up in the finished product.

It’s a wonder that these small buildings haven’t been released as City sets in their own right, but at least 204 people want to see this one happen.

You know how I feel about promoting projects based on IPs, but I had to include this one as it looks frickin’ cool. Disney-owned or not, I would at least have a play around with one of these. This is actually one of a set of four suits, one of which represents Captain America.

Although the suit looks great as-is, it’s designed to hold an Iron Man minifigure. If you don’t have one already, it may be worth getting hold of one of the Super Heroes sets while you still can!

As the project description rightly states: there have been quite a few projects inspired by the infamous Research Institute, but hardly any of them – if any at all – have featured profession working directly with people. In particular, the hospital subtheme of City has been grossly under-represented.

I don’t have much to say about this project because it speaks for itself, but one good thing that could come out of the Research Institute’s success is a bunch of similar sets of vignettes based around different professions. It doesn’t even matter if they’re all male, female or one of the other 49 “genders” that are making the news these days: anything that encourages children to want to be something other than Internet celebrities is a good thing.

Right now there are 67 supporters behind this specific variant of the infamous set.

My first thought when coming across this project was: what is the purpose of this building? See, I’d certainly heard of community centres, but I’ve never really understood them. Well, it really doesn’t matter – your town layout probably doesn’t have one of these, because it could simply be a place where people get together and do things as part of a close-knit community.

I’m not sure how well it would do, given that it’s a very detailed (and attractive!) modern modular building, but projects with far more parts have somehow managed to acquire the necessary 10,000 supporters.

Speaking of close-knit communities, there’s one made up of 109 supporters for this project.

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That’s it for this month, join us next month for another episode of Underrated CUUSOO, exclusively on SilentMode.tv.